A few weeks ago, as the Senate Judiciary Committee was debating immigration reform, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) told everyone the story of Candida Gutierrez, a Houston schoolteacher whose identity was stolen by an illegal alien named Bentia Cardona-Gonzalez. This was a big-time identity heist, as Cardona-Gonzalez opened bank accounts and secured credit cards, a drivers’ license, employment, a mortgage, and health care with her stolen identity over the course of 12 years. Gutierrez’ stolen name even wound up on the birth certificates of the illegal alien’s U.S.-born children. The authorities didn’t catch her; Gutierrez’ husband (the one thing Cardona-Gonzalez didn’t steal!) tracked down the thief and turned her over to the feds.

With this story in mind, Grassley proposed an amendment to immigration reform that would require amnesty-seeking illegals to hand over every name and Social Security number they had used to gain employment in the United States. Grassley’s amendment didn’t explicitly bar identity thieves from receiving amnesty, or mandate their arrest, but would have authorized federal agencies to notify the rightful owners of stolen identities. He called it “the first step to helping clean up the mess that’s been created for the victim of identity theft.”

That was too much for Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who took immigration reform from the youthful hands of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and turned it into the usual Democrat nightmare of vote-buying giveaways. As chronicled by CNS News, Schumer explained that identity theft is perfectly normal and understandable behavior for those who cross the border illegally. It would be unfair to expect them to comply with any other American laws they find inconvenient, in addition to the one about not violating our border…